MINNEAPOLIS – On a night when Harrison Barnes returned to the lineup and immediately reminded the Warriors just how valuable his is, they had to play the final 14 ½ minutes without their most valuable player.
With Stephen Curry ailing in the locker room possibly with injuries to both legs, the Warriors held on to and even extended their lead to beat Minnesota 106-93 on Wednesday night at the Target Center.
Curry got tangled with Ricky Rubio at the 8:41 mark of the third quarter, appeared to hyperextend his right knee and had to call a timeout to seek medical attention. The Warriors’ point guard re-entered the game about three minutes later, but apparently endured a second injury that the team is calling a left foot bone bruise.
Toney Douglas replaced Curry with 2:24 left in the third quarter, and the superstar slowly walked to the Warriors’ locker room, leaving his teammates to try to wrap up a game without him. Surprisingly, they were more than up for the challenge, stretching a nine-point advantage to as many as 18 points.
Barnes had a lot to do with it. In his first action since leaving the Oct. 7 exhibition game because of left foot inflammation, the second-year forward scored 14 points in 13:53.
If he was rusty from having only one practice in the past month, he showed no signs. He went 6-for-8 from the floor and looked like his usual, high-flying self – including slamming home a leaping, between-the-legs pass from Curry.
Klay Thompson scored 26 of his game-high 30 points in the second half, Andre Iguodala added 20 points and six assists, and David Lee made life tough on Kevin Love. Lee had 22 points and 15 rebounds and limited the Western Conference Player of the Week to 10-for-25 shooting.
After a sluggish start, the Warriors’ defense regained its stellar form. They held the Timberwolves (3-2) to 37.8 percent shooting from the floor, marking the fourth time in five games that the Warriors (4-1) have yielded less than 40 percent shooting.
The Warriors have won or split the season series against the Timberwolves each of the past eight seasons, including sweeping the four-game in 2012-13. During the stretch, the Warriors have won five straight and nine of their past 10 games in Minnesota.
But this one didn’t initially look like it was going to be a continuation of the trend in the early minutes.
Barnes made his season debut at the 5:33 mark of the first quarter and gave some life to the Warriors, who had sleepwalked early in falling behind 16-8. The second-year forward, who had been sidelined with left foot inflammation since Oct. 7, scored eight points in 5:06.
The second unit had struggled to score in the season’s first four games, but with Barnes handling the offensive, the backups could focus on what they do best. They ignited a 14-3 run at the start of the second quarter and sent the Timberwolves’ shooting percentage plummeting from 50 percent to 39.1 as they grabbed a 40-33 advantage.
The Warriors came into the night having knocked 53 three-pointers, but they missed their first eight. Curry and Thompson shot 3-for-14 from the field in the first half, Andrew Bogut had four fouls in 9:04, and yet they still found a way to lead 50-47 at the intermission.
Thompson finally made a three-pointer three minutes into the second half to make the Warriors 1-for-9 on the night and foreshadow a runaway. But Bogut went to the bench with his fifth foul, and Curry limped off the court.
Minnesota trimmed the Warriors’ 11-point lead to 67-64 with 4:14 remaining in the third quarter, and then Iguodala got serious. He had four points, two steals and an assist during an 8-0 run that gave the Warriors a little breathing room.